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Information Theory-Based Measurement of Software

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Towards an Information Theory of Complex Networks

Abstract

Abstractions of software may take the form of complex graphs. This chapter presents methods for measurement of hypergraph abstractions of software, using information theory, rather than counting. Even though the context of this chapter is software engineering, the measurement methods are applicable to any hypergraph. The software-metrics literature often assumes that complex software has more bugs than simple software. Thus, if one measures a software system, one can identify which modules are more likely to have bugs. This chapter presents measures of size, complexity, and coupling in terms of the amount of information, building on formal definitions of these software-metric families proposed by Briand, Morasca, and Basili. Kolmogorov complexity and its information theory-based approximations are the foundation for our measure of size. Excess entropy is the foundation for our measures of complexity and coupling. These concepts make the metrics sensitive to the configuration of hypergraph connections, and thus, may be preferred to corresponding counting metrics.

MSC2000 Primary 68N30; Secondary 94A17, 68Q30.

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Acknowledgements

This work was supported in part by grant CCR-0098024 from the National Science Foundation. The findings and opinions in this chapter belong solely to the author and are not necessarily those of the sponsor. We thank Sampath Gottipati, Rajiv Govindarajan, Taghi M. Khoshgoftaar, and Ye Chen, who were coauthors of related work with us. We thank the Empirical Software Engineering research group at Mississippi State University for helpful discussions.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Computer Science and Engineering, Mississippi State University, 9637, Mississippi State, MS, Starkville, 39762, USA

    Edward B. Allen

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  1. Edward B. Allen
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Correspondence to Edward B. Allen .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Medizinische Informatik und Technik, Institute for Bioinformatics and Transla, UMIT-Private Universität für Gesundheits, Eduard Wallnöfer-Zentrum 1, Hall in Tirol, A-6060, Austria

    Matthias Dehmer

  2. Queen's University Belfast, School of Medicine, Dentistry, and Cell, Center for Cancer Research & Cell Biolog, Lisburn Road 97, Belfast, BT97BL, United Kingdom

    Frank Emmert-Streib

  3. Goethe-University Frankfurt am Main, Department of Philosophy and Historical, Center for Computing in the Humanities, Senckenberganlage 31, Frankfurt, 60325, Germany

    Alexander Mehler

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Allen, E.B. (2011). Information Theory-Based Measurement of Software. In: Dehmer, M., Emmert-Streib, F., Mehler, A. (eds) Towards an Information Theory of Complex Networks. Birkhäuser, Boston, MA. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-0-8176-4904-3_12

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